I recently read that the ancient Africans measured wealth by how much you could afford to give away.
When we step beyond what we need into a little elbow room, we can reach sufficiency. However, a sense of sufficiency doesn’t come from getting ever more. That’s a form of grasping that’s a symptom of a belief in not enough. From that platform, we’ll never reach enough. If it’s never enough, what do we have to give away?
One of the insidious forms of “not enough” is the widespread entitlement you see in the west. Advertising media has cultured a sense of deserving beyond our means. Plus caring what others think of the appearance of our possessions. The result is excess stuff and unprecedented debt. You can see this is founded in “not enough” because it never is.
This grasping at possessions is from our identification with them. We see what is outside of us as something to fill an inner lack. This may show up as a craving for possessions, relationships, food, distraction, and so on. But it only ever results in a brief sense of satisfaction, often followed by a hollow let-down. It will never meet that lack as it’s not what we’re missing.
Yoga views this possessiveness as a form of theft. When we let that go, deeply, then nature can support us in ways we can’t imagine. The Yoga sutras tell us “gems rise up”. Wealth rises up in life to meet us.
This may seem profoundly counter-intuitive. Fulfilling our desires by letting them go? But as usual, when we deeply let go in an area of our lives, then life can flow there and abundance can arise. Desires can then flow without strings attached. Without attachment, true wealth and abundance comes from that deep inner connection with infinite source. We become an open vessel of its expression.
True wealth is an abundance of happiness, peace, satisfaction and overall well-being, including financial. This doesn’t necessarily mean rich. It means Enough. And that we will only find within, beyond grasping.
Davidya
Last Updated on June 16, 2016 by
I like this about receiving and letting go: “This may seem profoundly counter-intuitive. Fulfilling our desires by letting them go?”
In the Tao Te Ching it says:
“The student learns by daily increment.
The Way is gained by daily loss,
Loss upon loss until
At last comes rest.
By letting go, it all gets done;
The world is won by those who let it go!
But when you try and try,
The world is then beyond the winning.”
That is also the approach in The Sedona Method and works in my experience no matter the aim.
Hi Jesper
Beautiful, and well put.
Awhile back, I wrote a few articles talking about that.
To accomplish, we first intend. And they we need to allow it, to let it go. This means acknowledging it’s not us that organizes things to happen so we have to get out of the way of that. And yet we continue to move towards it.
https://davidya.ca/2009/02/18/basic-skills/
I find it useful to also remember that while we may get what we intend, we may actually still be unhappy. For instance, our succes may make our friends jealous, or our wealth may make us feel guilty. Thus, we are unhappy with the goal and without it. It’s a lose/lose situation.
That is why The Sedona Method stresses letting go of attachments and aversions to our goals/what we intend. In that way we are happy if get the goal and happy if we don’t. Win/win.
Great, I’ll take a look at it. Thanks.
Agreed, Jesper.
But there is also a deeper win here. When the attachments and aversions clear, then life can smoothly fulfill desires. They may not come in a form we might expect, but unattached, we allow things to unfold. Often then, nature can do better than we thought.
This also allows us to process away the karma more smoothly rather than amplify and reinforce it.
Yes, I didn’t mention that. That’s definitely an important point.
Yes, the cycle appears to go from *fake wealth*, rooted in illusion and ignorance, to no wealth, to overwhelming abundance, true wealth.
Like a single cycle of meditation, the refreshed and clearer feeling afterwards, in sync with the world, becomes a lifestyle, so that ease is the norm, and the Universe eagerly awaits our desires that they may be fulfilled.
Once we are free, *everything* is ours; the intimate relationship with life, and death, becomes real, present, and active. Authentic. This boundless nature of ours is communicated everywhere, and life responds too with loving gratitude, having found her lasting partner in this unending Creation.
(laughs) Well put, Jim. It often happens that we have to let go of the old so the new can flow in.
David, thanks for the link to the older article; it complements this one perfectly.
And Jesper, thanks for mentioning the Sedona Method. I have been thinking about checking it out for a few years. Somehow your words seem like a sign …
I can highly recommend it. It has helped me a lot in all areas of my life. And you can use it at any time during the day which is very practical.
A note about the price – I think the “supercourse” is about 250 dollars, which is a bit expensive to some people.
I don’t think Hale cares about the money. The price is so high because otherwise people wouldn’t use the method. In the early days Lester Levenson who inspired the method made it free, but he found that nobody wanted to it until he started charging money for it. I think it is because we can’t help but equal price and quality.
I just wanted to make that note, so you didn’t get the wrong idea about the motives of the people behind the method.
Hey thanks Jesper, I appreciate the extra info.
The note about the ancient Africans measurement of wealth is subtle, isn’t it, kinda ambiguous..?
Hi Scott
Well it may have lost something in the translation. It also wasn’t cited what part of Africa it came from. But I’ve seen similar in other cultures like First Nations.
But partly it’s because it’s rather outside how our western culture tends to think about wealth. Sufficiency and Philanthropy are less common practices.
Thanks David
Yes, its true that we in the West don’t generally consider sufficiency or contentment virtues to cultivate.
I’m not surprised that a similar notion exists in other Aboriginal cultures. Perhaps coming from more earth- based traditions, a natural sense of abundance is intrisic to those cultures. Anyway it’s a beautiful quote.